1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid droplet ejecting apparatus such as an ink jet printer.
2. Description of Related Art
In a known color ink jet printer, when it is detected that any of a plurality of ink cartridges arranged to store a plurality of colors of inks is empty, this information is displayed as a warning on a user operation screen. Glancing this information, the user opens a cover of a main body of the ink jet printer, detaches the empty ink cartridge and changes it with a new one.
However, if the user opens the cover without correctly recognizing the color (black, cyan, magenta, or yellow) of the empty ink cartridge after the user glances the warning displayed on the operation screen, the user may sometimes inadvertently detach a different ink cartridge.
Accordingly, there has been disclosed an ink jet printer, in which an empty ink cartridge, which is selected from a plurality of ink cartridges, is entirely detached from a carriage and is automatically ejected outside the printer and a new ink cartridge supplied by the user is automatically mounted to the carriage by an automatic loading system (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2007-69541). Since this ink jet printer carries out an operation for changing the empty ink cartridge semi-automatically, it is possible to avoid that the user inadvertently detaches a different ink cartridge which is not empty. Thus, this ink jet printer is convenient to the user
However, in the ink jet printer disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2007-69541, since the empty ink cartridge is entirely automatically ejected, an ink supply passage between the empty ink cartridge and a main body of the printer is automatically opened. In this case, unless the user promptly supplies a new ink cartridge, air bubbles or foreign matter such as dust, are likely to enter the ink supply passage through a joint between the empty ink cartridge and the main body of the printer, or droplets of remaining ink are likely to fall from the joint.